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What
do you think of Michelle’s experience
of mentoring? - share here |
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What
does the following fun story tell us
about sharing all we have with others?
So, a married couple have just
found a nice new Church to be a part
of. The people seem really friendly,
the worship is great, the food is good,
and the Spirit really seems alive there.
This particular Church is also on a
bit of a sharing kick. That is, people
seem to be really into sharing what
they have with each other, from food
to clothes to homes. Some people even
go so far as to sell off property and
give the money to the Church so they
can redistribute it to the poor.
This seems pretty radical, but the married
couple think it’s noble, and,
wanting to fit in, they decide to go
for it. They have a decent piece of
property which they don’t need,
so they sell it off for a good price.
They put a little money from the sale
on the side for themselves, and the
husband brings the rest to the Church
leaders as an offering. All their friends
are wowed by their charity.
When the husband brings the money in,
the Church leader asks where the money
came from. The husband explains that
he and his wife sold off their property,
and that they wanted to give the money
from the sale to the Church for the
poor.
“Is this all the
money from the sale?” the Church
leader asks.
“Yup,”
replies the husband, “all the
money from the sale is here.”
The Church leader responds, “No,
you’re lying. You kept some for
yourself.”
And so God strikes the husband dead.
Wait…what?
Uh, ok so later on the wife comes along,
wanting to know what’s keeping
her husband. She meets up with the Church
leader, and asks him if he had already
received their sacrificial gift.
“Yeah, we did. Hey, the money
you gave, was that all the money from
the sale of your property?”
“Sure was,” replied
the wife. “Every penny.”
“Hmmm, that was your husband’s
lie as well. He’s dead now thanks
to that lie. Bye.”
God strikes her dead too.
Hang on. That doesn’t seem…right.
They must have done something worse
than just keeping some money back and
lying about it. God doesn’t just
kill people for stuff like that, or
else everybody would be dead. Or is
it possible that we have an incomplete
view of God?
The story, if you haven’t recognized
it, is of Ananias and Sapphira, and
it can be found in Acts 5:1-11. God
really does kill two people in this
story from the early Church for not
giving the full amount of the property
sale to the Church and then lying about
it.
Some people call this a “text
of terror”, propaganda used by
the early Church to ensure that people
gave lots of money. One person I know
has even suggested that it wasn’t
God but Peter and his cohorts who murdered
the couple behind closed doors and then
told everyone it was God. Frightening
thought.
What was it about the couple’s
sin that caused such a serious consequence?
It is of utmost importance here to note
the context. This is a story from the
fledgling Christian community, the very
first expression of what it meant to
be followers of the Way of Christ. Remember
the Acts 2 bit, where everyone shared
everything they had, and nobody lacked
anything? This was a vital piece of
the puzzle, part of the essential definition
of what it meant to be in the “Christian”
community.
Ananias and Sapphira broke trust utterly
with the community, first by withholding
money, then by lying about it. Sharing
everything you have with others requires
a lot of trust. In the early Acts community,
new people were being added to the fellowship
everyday. Leaders were at times scrambling
to ensure that everyone was sharing
properly and fairly with each other,
and that old patterns of greed and division
didn’t take root (Acts 6). So
they had to be very intentional, disciplined
and careful about issues surrounding
trust, sharing, and redistribution of
wealth. Failure to do so could very
quickly destroy any integrity they had,
and could kill off any opportunity they
had for spreading the message of the
Kingdom. In other words, learning to
share lives and thoughts and material
possessions and property and wealth
was of primary importance to the early
Church.
It seems we have come a long way since
then. Our primary concerns are generally
not how well we share what we have with
others, how fairly we distribute wealth,
or how trustworthy we are at taking
care of each other and all the new people
coming into our fellowships. Rather,
our concerns seem to be, from a financial
and resource standpoint anyways, more
about buildings, instruments, computers,
staffing costs, and structure. Most
of the money given in tithes is used
by the Church internally, and this doesn’t
really seem like the original point
of sharing possessions.
Is it possible that we have become guilty
of being untrustworthy with the money
God has given us? Are we culpable of
withholding money that is supposed to
be shared with the community, particularly
with those who lack? Are we all going
to be struck dead by God?
I confess, I don’t completely
understand the severity of the consequences
for Ananias and Sapphira. It seems harsh,
as if they were being made into examples
for others (which seems likely really).
All I do know is that it proves that
God takes this issue of sharing with
others very, very seriously, and that
perhaps we ought to be reevaluating
how well we are sharing what we have
been given with others.
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